Arts@CERN announces 3 new awards and reaches Asia

28 October, 2014

Geneva, 28 October 2014. CERN1 is announcing today a new Collide @ CERN2 residency award award in cultural partnership with the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, as well as two Accelerate @ CERN awards3 with the Ministry of Culture for Taiwan and the Austrian Federal Chancellery. All are part of the Arts @ CERN programme, which was initiated by CERN in 2011.

“Our creative engagement with the fields of the arts has created exceptional international interest and support and we are proud to be continuing our programme with new partners from Europe to Asia,” said CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer. “With Arts @ CERN, we are demonstrating how science is a fundamental part of culture in the widest sense.”

This is the first year of the Pro Helvetia4 Collide @ CERN residency award, and it will be devoted to artists from any art discipline who wish to create a project that engages with the artistic, interactive and connective potential of the worldwide web, which this year celebrated its 25th anniversary. The award, for artists or designers who live, work or were born in Switzerland, consists of a residency of 3 months at CERN with a stipend of 15,000 CHF funded by Pro Helvetia. The open call begins today and will close on 27 February 2015.

The Ministry of Culture for Taiwan and the Austrian Federal Chancellery are also marking their countries’ unique contributions to culture by sponsoring individual Accelerate @ CERN one-month research awards in different art forms.

The award held in partnership with the Ministry of Culture for Taiwan and the country’s Cultural Centre in Paris is for two Taiwanese artists - a digital artist or programmer partnered with a choreographer or dancer - who wish to investigate the limits and interplay between real and virtual worlds by engaging with particle physics and digital technology5.

The award with the Austrian Federal Chancellery is for an architect to explore the limits of the material world, time and space by engaging with the physics and engineering at CERN6.

The open calls begin today in both respective countries and will close on 9 February 2015. The winners will receive a stipend of 5,000CHF each for their one-month research stay at CERN. Both awards are for artists who have never stayed in a science laboratory before.

“This year we have seen the fruits of the Arts @ CERN programme with feature articles from The New York Times to Vogue, and with the international tour of Gilles Jobin's choreographic creation QUANTUM. It will be extremely exciting to see how these new awards will have impact in the future,” says CERN’s Cultural Specialist and creator of the Arts @ CERN programme Ariane Koek.

The Collide @ CERN and Accelerate @ CERN awards will be judged by specialist juries comprising nominated experts by the funders of the programmes and representatives from CERN.

1. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Romania is a Candidate for Accession. Serbia is an Associate Member in the pre-stage to Membership. India, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer Status.2. Collide @ CERN is the artist-in-residence programme launched by CERN in 2011, initially for 3 years for artists to win a residency of up to 3 months funded by external partners and private donors. Our current Collide @ CERN artists in residence in 2014 are Ryoji Ikeda, the musician Vincent Hanni and installation artist Rudy Decelière.3. Accelerate @ CERN is a one month research award funded by two different countries every year. The award was launched in 2013 in partnership with the Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens, Greece and with Pro Helevetia, the swiss arts council of Switzerland through its Mobile. In Touch with Digital Creation programme, which explores the impact of digitalization on artistic work.4. Pro Helvetia is the arts council of Switzerland and is a foundation entirely funded by the Swiss Federal Government. It is responsible for promoting artistic creativity in Switzerland, contributing to cultural exchange at home and promoting the dissemination of Swiss culture abroad (http://www.prohelvetia.ch/). Pro Helvetia recently initiated the programme «Mobile. In Touch with Digital Creation» (2013-2015), which explores the impact of digitalization on artistic work.5. The Ministry of Culture for Taiwan is a Cabinet-level governmental body of Taiwan (www.english.moc.gov.tw).6. Federal Chancellery of Austria. BUNDESKANZLERAMT ÖSTERREICH (www.bka.gv.at)